May is Melanoma Awareness Month, Take Precautions and Be Safe

For those of us up here in the Northland, we truly cherish these nice warm days and plenty of sunshine. Yes, we deserve every beautiful warm beam of sunshine, and our time to enjoy it is awfully short, so with that take care of yourself and use sunscreen.

This subject is of a personal nature to me, losing a friend of mine to this deadly disease. His name was Kelly Boedigheimer and he was an amazing, vibrant, hilarious guy who is gone to soon. Kelly, like most people loved being in the sun and being tan. He always had a beautiful glow, which in the end cost him his life. What started as an ingrown hair on his chin turned into "Garden Variety Melanoma" which is very hard to treat and the survival rate is very low.

Kelly passed away just 9 months after he was diagnosed. I am not one to preach, I love being out in the sun too and have heeded many a warning from my parents and Doctors alike about protecting my skin. As you can see from the statistics above it is not something that just affects you when you get older, young people are being diagnosed at an alarming rate. Do your homework and protect yourself based on your skin type. Do it for yourself and the ones you love, so you can be around for a long time to enjoy many beautiful days ahead.

For more information on how to protect yourself and your family members Click Here